The Occult Section

This week’s photo is not of an allegedly haunted location. This week, to show solidarity with the people of Boston, we are featuring a photo of the Boston State House. As a New Yorker and a Yankee fan, I give Boston a lot of ribbing. But in times like this, in the wake of the terrible bombings at the Boston Marathon on Patriot’s Day, and the ensuing manhunt that affected the entire city, petty sports rivalries take a break. And one of our writers, Laura Pennace, is a Massachusetts girl, so how could we not show our solidarity with her?  Built in 1798, the “new” State House is located directly across from the Boston Common on the top of Beacon Hill. The land was once owned by the first elected governor of Massachusetts, John Hancock. Charles Bullfinch, the leading architect of the day, designed the building, which today is known for its distinctive golden dome. The dome was originally made out of wood shingles, but is now sheathed in copper and covered by 23 karat gold, which was added to prevent leaks into the State House.

All photos in our Photo of the Week series are taken by New York Paranormal Society team member Laura Pennace, who is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings, as well as engagement and proposal shoots. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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The Conference House, also known as the Billopp House, is a colonial mansion in the Tottenville section of Staten Island, N.Y. It’s historically significant because on September 11th, 1776, Ben Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge held a Peace Conference here with British officials, in an attempt to stop the Revolutionary War. They failed.

The house was originally built in the late 1600s (no exact date is known), and belonged to a Captain Christopher Billopp, a British loyalist who settled in America. Future generations of the Billopp family also occupied the modest colonial home. Archaeological evidence suggests that prior to Billopp’s arrival, the area was settled by Native Americans. Today, the house is the only pre-Revolutionary War landmark still standing in New York City. It’s located on the western end of Staten Island, near New Jersey, and situated on the beautiful Conference House Park, which overlooks Raritan Bay.

Besides the historical significance of the Conference House, it is also a well-known haunted house. It is mentioned in just about every book on haunted locations in America. The house itself is small, but there are 2 floors, an attic that served as the slave quarters, and a basement which was used as the kitchen and food preparation area.

The main story associated with ghostly activity in the house regards Captain Billopp and one of the slave girls. Apparently, one day she was caught giving signals to the Americans across Raritan Bay by lighting a candle in her window at night, and Billopp (who was a British loyalist) either stabbed her at the top of the staircase, pushed her down the staircase to her death, or both. It is said that at night, sometimes a light can be seen in the Conference House window where she would signal from.

Although official investigations are not allowed by the Conference House, we have, in the past, been granted some exclusive access to the building after-hours as we were in good with the tour guides. And while we definitely captured some interesting things, the jury is still out on whether or not the Conference House is truly haunted.

All photos in our Photo of the Week series are taken by New York Paranormal Society team member Laura Pennace, who is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings, as well as engagement and proposal shoots. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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This week’s photo is from the Alice Austen House Museum, located on Staten Island, New York. The house, as you may have guessed, was the home of the now-famous photographer Alice Austen. Alice first became interested in photography when her uncle, Oswald Müller, brought home a camera in approximately 1876. Alice’s uncle Peter Townsend Austen was a chemistry professor at Rutgers University who taught her photographic processing. Peter and Oswald converted a closet on the second floor of the house into Alice’s darkroom. The earliest extant photograph by her is dated 1884. Over the next 40 years she produced around 8,000 photographs. The Alice Austen House, also known as Clear Comfort, is located at 2 Hylan Boulevard in the Rosebank section of Staten Island, New York City, New York. It was originally built between 1690 and 1750 as a one room Dutch Colonial House on the shore of New York harbor, near the Narrows. It was remodeled and expanded several times in the 1800s, most notably after John Haggerty Austen, Alice’s grandfather, purchased, renamed, and remodeled it in 1844. In 1970, it was added to the  National Register of Historic Places. It was officially declared a New York City landmark in 1971. In 1975, it was purchased by NYC and opened to the public. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1993.

Locally on Staten Island, the house has a reputation for being haunted, but we really couldn’t find any more supporting evidence than the typical urban legends that seem to be passed around by the always reliable teenager. The museum does not allow official paranormal investigations, so there is no real evidence out there that the house is haunted. As with most urban legends, the ghost stories surrounding the Alice Austen house were probably started because the house is simply old, and for most people, old means spooky. But all we found when we visited was a beautiful home sitting in a beautiful park, right on the waterfront. And until investigators can get in and see for themselves, we may never know if the Alice Austen house is truly haunted.

All photos in our Photo of the Week series are taken by New York Paranormal Society team member Laura Pennace, who is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings, as well as engagement and proposal shoots. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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This week’s photo features the oldest house in Manhattan, the Morris-Jumel Mansion. Built in 1765 by Roger Morris, the mansion was used as a temporary headquarters for General George Washington after he and his army were forced to flee Brooklyn Heights after the Battle of Long Island. Later on in the war, it served as the headquarters to British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, and the Hessian commander Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen. Stephen Jumel and his wife Eliza Jumel purchased the house in 1810, and after Stephen’s death, Eliza married the controversial ex-vice president Aaron Burr who lived at the house briefly in the 1830s. After Burr’s death in 1836, Eliza lived in the house alone until she died in 1865.

Today, the mansion is rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of Eliza Jumel, Stephen Jumel, and Aaron Burr. And let’s not forget such paranormal mainstays as the Revolutionary War soldier and the jilted maidservant, who supposedly committed suicide in the house.

All photos in our Photo of the Week series are taken by New York Paranormal Society team member Laura Pennace, who is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings, as well as engagement and proposal shoots. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

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This week’s photo is of the Van Cortlandt House, the oldest building in the Bronx, New York City. The house was built in the Georgian style by Frederick Van Cortlandt (1699–1749) in 1748 for his family. Van Cortlandt died before its completion and the property was inherited by his son, James Van Cortlandt (1727–1787). It was built in 1748 of dressed fieldstone and is representative of the high Georgian style. The Van Cortlandts, a mercantile family prominent in New York affairs, established a grain plantation and grist mill on the property. The house was used during the Revolutionary War by Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Washington. In 1889, after 140 years of occupancy by the Van Cortlandt family, the property was sold to the City of New York and made a public parkland. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1967 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The house has been operated as a historic house museum since 1897, the first in the city and fourth in the country.

The house and grounds are said to be haunted by the spirits of Mohican Indians, as well as Dutch settler Adrian Van der Donck (who staked his claim to the area in 1646, and who likely died in the area in one of a series of Indian raids in September 1655), merchant and mayor Jacobus Van Cortlandt (who purchased the land there in 1694 and for whom the house and park are named), and General George Washington (who is known to have stayed in the House at least twice during the Revolutionary War).

All photos in our Photo of the Week series are taken by New York Paranormal Society team member Laura Pennace, who is a New York City wedding photographer specializing in city hall and courthouse weddings, as well as engagement and proposal shoots. You can see more of Laura’s work at Pennace Photography (www.pennacephotography.com)

Sources:

Yahoo! Answers

Wikipedia

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